


if you were walking away, keep walking

by likewinning



Series: little beasts [101]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, M/M, more violence than usual i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:35:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24395122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/pseuds/likewinning
Summary: Okay, Jason guesses, is watching Bruce go out in handcuffs, neither of them saying a word.
Relationships: Harvey Dent/Jason Todd
Series: little beasts [101]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/271950
Comments: 14
Kudos: 55





	if you were walking away, keep walking

When it goes down, Jason's sitting in Bruce's kitchen drinking bad coffee, not not _not_ watching the clock.

There's noise, and cocked guns, and shouting, and loudest of all is Bruce looking at him from across the table before they slam his head down on it.

"They won't touch us," Dick told them all a few nights ago. "We're all going to be okay."

Okay, Jason guesses, is watching Bruce go out in handcuffs, neither of them saying a word. Okay, then, is being kicked out of the place where he grew up, where he learned to shoot a gun and set fire to buildings, is being allowed to get in his car and go - somewhere - while the FBI rifles through every part of his life until now.

He doesn't call Harvey.

*

He goes to Roy's. Before he opens the door he hears shouting, things crashing to the floor, and for the first time in years he thinks about his parents.

"We're getting out of here for a while," Roy says when Tim disappears into the bedroom with a backpack and a scowl. Roy's long hair is held back in a ponytail, and he looks exhausted. "Until things quiet down."

"It's Gotham," Jason points out, but he knows. Roy doesn't want Tim to be here, doesn't want Tim to do something stupid and _loyal._

Once, when they were on a job, someone they were supposed to be working with from New York said something stupid about Jason's leather jacket. Tim didn't say anything, but after they finished the job he pulled the guy up by the neck and sliced his mouth open.

"You should watch what you say," Tim said, and Jason didn't react, just threw Tim into the back seat of the car and fucked the life out of him.

"You don't even like me," Jason said later.

"We're partners," Tim said, like that was everything.

"Be careful," Roy says now, hugging him so tight Jason swears he hears something crunch, and he wants to laugh. He's done more drugs with Roy than any of the rest of them combined, gotten in more stupid fights that ended in horror at bars in the middle of nowhere. Roy and Tim are the opposite of fucking _careful._

Tim comes out to see him before he leaves, skinnier than ever and his knives visible at his hips. The knuckles on his right hand are actively bleeding and he says in his dead, dead voice, "Dick is digging his own grave."

Jason pulls him in, feels him shrink before his nails scrape at Jason's jacket. A year ago, he might've gone with them. "We all are, baby," he says. "Every single day."

*

He drags Steph out of her apartment and down to the park a few blocks away before he tells her. She looks at him for a long time before she says, "And _that's_ why I left."

"Because you knew he'd get arrested?" Jason asks.

Steph rolls her eyes. "No, dummy," she says. "Because I didn't want to get caught in that vortex of codependency and gasoline."

Jason lights a cigarette. "I thought you left because Bruce wouldn't let you drive the Mercedes."

"That too," Steph says. She snatches the cigarette out of Jason's hand, takes a puff, makes a face and hands it back. "Dinah lets me do _everything._ We're a _team_. Bruce was…"

"Is," Jason corrects. He's not _dead_.

"He's a reckless, murdering asshole," Steph says, then says, "I'm sorry."

Jason waves her off. "So what do I do now?"

Steph sighs. "It depends, I guess," she says.

"On what?"

"I mean," Steph says. "Do you want to be him?"

"I could be," Jason says, after a pause. He could be cruel, and calculating, coked off his face and homicidal, already _is_ a lot of those - "But I don't want to be, no."

"So then what do you want?" Steph asks.

"It," Jason says. "It really doesn't matter. I mean I - I never wanted this to happen."

He wants Bruce's arms around him, and Harvey's mouth on his neck. He wants enough whiskey to drown in, and for someone to make him _hurt._

He walks Steph back to her apartment, but he doesn't go up. He needs to find Harvey.

*

When Jason puts his key in the lock, Harvey opens the door for him. He's wearing a suit and tie, but his hair is ten ways from fucked up like he's been pulling at it all day, and Jason swears he sees more grey in it.

Harvey lets him in without a word, turns away from him and walks into the kitchen to pour himself a drink. Jason follows, feeling smaller than when he'd go to the apartments of dirty old men, half expecting a knife in his back.

"I should've called," Jason says.

"Mm," Harvey says. He sips his drink, looks Jason over. "He asked about you. If you were okay."

Jason doesn't say anything. Harvey crunches the ice in his glass and it's louder than gunshots. "So," Harvey says. "How is it that you're here, and he's… not."

"I'm," Jason says. He knows, and he's been wondering the same thing. He asked Bruce, once, what would happen if it all fell apart. Bruce scooped him in his arms - Jason was still so thin then, not yet a product of real food - and said, "We all go down together."

"You're shivering, Jay," Harvey says now. He sets down his glass. "Come here."

Jason goes, obedient as a dog, and Harvey takes him in his arms. He has long enough to breathe in the scent of him, Marlboros and expensive cologne, before Harvey pushes him back, grabs him by the throat and shoves him down onto the counter.

Harvey's eyes burn, and this isn't a game.

"What did you do," Harvey asks.

"I didn't," Jason says. "It was him or us, Harvey."

"Us," Harvey says, and Jason nods as much as he can with his throat on lockdown, but he doesn't let Dick's name out of his mouth.

"I didn't do anything," Jason says, and Harvey loosens his grip.

"That," Harvey says, "is obvious."

"I'm sorry," Jason chokes. "I wanted to tell you, but I knew…"

"I'd stop you," Harvey finishes for him. He lets Jason go and turns away. Jason stands up.

"You couldn't take the fall for him again, Harv." He wants to reach out, but the same hand that has killed dozens of men now trembles.

Harvey steps away from him and slips off his tie, then shucks his jacket on the counter next to Jason's copy of _To the Lighthouse_. He loosens his shirt from his slacks, undoes the top button and despite everything, when Harvey turns back around Jason's mouth goes dry with want.

Christ, but he hated Harvey. A few years ago, he would've glady thrown the guy back in jail to keep him away from Bruce. He never gave Harvey a minute of his time, never knew he was just another punk street kid plus twenty years, that he could read fucking ancient _Greek_ if you asked him to.

And Jason has, early Sunday mornings when there's nothing to do, the cat curled up on his stomach until Jason kicks him off so he can suck Harvey's dick for an hour over _the Iliad_.

He's losing. He's losing today. First Bruce, who never once glanced at Jason after they cuffed him, and now, now -

"If you need me to go," Jason says. "I can, I mean - I can stay with Dick, or -" but Dick and the fucking FBI are probably having a sleepover party, and Roy skipped town, and Dinah runs a full house as it is.

And Harvey knows, and laughs at him. He grips Jason's face in his hand, presses his face to it. "Where will you go, little bird?"

He could go anywhere. He has the money for it. But the truth is, he's forgotten how to be alone.

He drops to his knees and looks up, and Harvey nods at him, grips a handful of Jason's hair. "I should kill you," Harvey says, but Jason doesn't pause, gets Harvey's dick out.

"But even now, I think he'd be upset."

This is rage talking, and vengeance. Jason feels it too, the sickening need to firebomb a police station, to cut Dick's new friends in half.

He won't. Loyalty or stupidity, but he won't. Instead he chokes himself on Harvey's dick, lets Harvey fuck his face until his mouth goes numb. Before he comes Harvey shoves him to the kitchen floor, flips him over and drags his pants down. He gives Jason his fingers to suck, shoves them inside and Jason cries out, kicks his feet still tangled in his jeans.

"You kept me out," Harvey says, working his fingers in Jason, dragging his leaking dick against Jason's back.

"Yes," Jason gasps out. 

"You had to," Harvey says in a softer voice. He screws his fingers in Jason without mercy, but all but whispers, "You knew what I would do."

"Yes," Jason says, sobs, because Harvey takes his fingers out, takes his dick and shoves _in_ and Jason goes blind, doesn't see the floor beneath them, doesn't feel the cold tiles on his cheek.

Harvey fucks him across the floor, gets deep and bites into his shoulder blade. Jason knows he must be screaming, is sure Harvey's mouth is moving, but he's deaf to it all.

Harvey fucks, gets his hand underneath Jason and tugs at his cock until Jason thinks he might be crying. He feels Harvey come, and then instead of brutal silence he hears Harvey panting for breath, hears his heart pounding in his ears.

Jason starts to speak, chokes, struggles to his feet and aims a glob of spit at the sink before he tries again.

"I couldn't lose both of you," he says.

It's quiet, and then Harvey steps forward. He squeezes Jason's cheek, tugs it with his thumb like a relative Jason never had. "If this is your way of choosing, pal," he says, "you should've thought about it longer."

Harvey laughs then, and they pull their clothes on. "Let's get takeout," Harvey says then. "I'm tired of cooking."


End file.
